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“How?”
I pull the dagger from my thigh and show her. “Through them, if we must.”
Leora’s face pales.
Using my shadows, I conceal them with my body and unlock the cell door, sliding it open as softly as I can.
“They will kill us,” Leora says, her voice panicked and her face drenched in fear.
“We cannot stay in a cage, no matter how scared we are.” I take a step out of the cell, but she rushes over and takes my arm, stopping me from moving any farther.
“Please, Seren. They killed another for using her powers and another for trying to escape. They made us all watch.” She drops my arm to wrap hers around herself in comfort.
“I know you are scared because of what you saw. But you cannot stay here. You are to be sold or killed; those are your choices if you stay.” I reach a hand out to her. “Come with me.”
She shakes her head, stepping back into the cell. “I can’t.”
Moving out of the cell, I glance around at the other women, all huddled in the back of their cells.
“Are you all going to stay here? Lie down and die for them?” I ask them.
“Look behind you,” someone says.
I turn to the end of the cells to find the bodies of two women.
“Thatis what happens when we try to fight back. Death. And none of us wants to die,” she hisses, but her eyes are wide with fear, not anger.
“But they will kill you either way,” I tell her and them as I glance around at each frightened face. “Or sell you off to the highest bidder.”
“We’re not fighters,” another girl says, so softly I nearly miss it.
“But you can be,” I tell her. “It does not have to be just one. All of you can join together and fight your way out.”
The girl with the soft voice glances up at me. “But they’re stronger than us.”
I glance around at them and their already defeated faces and realize that it is not the bars keeping them here. Any one of them could have used their powers to unlock their cells. It’s their fear.Thatis what’s stopping them.
“The world can be an unforgiving place. It can be cruel and full of hardships no one wants to face. It can break you down until there is barely anything left of you, but it can also build you anew. It is also filled with laughter and love and the people who care about you.” I glance around at them all, pleading with them to fight. “Don’t you want to see your families again? Don’t you want to feel the light?”
Some of the girls move closer to the bars, giving me hope.
“Your freedom does not belong to them. It belongs to you. Andonlyyou can take it back,” I tell them, but they stay behind their bars, and I start to wonder if I’ll ever get them out.
Until one girl steps forward.
“I don’t want to be a prisoner here,” she says, looking at me with wide, fearful eyes. But there’s also a glint there—a glint of hope.
“I don’t want to die or be sold off.” A small shadow coils around her hand as she unlocks her cell and steps out. “I choose freedom and whatever may come from it.”
The other girls hesitate, but I can see it in their eyes now. That hope. It’s a small flicker that I want to watch grow into a flame that burns.
“If you won’t fight for yourselves, fight for one another. Fight for a cause bigger than yourself.”
They glance around, and then one after one, they unlock their cells and step out.
I glance back at Leora as she stays further back in the cell.
“Your freedom is yours to choose, but it can only be found through courage. Don’t give them this power. Don’t let them win.”
